COLUSA, CA (MPG) – The Colusa County Board of Supervisors, at their first meeting of 2025, held a moment of silence for Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, who died at his home in Plains, Ga. on Dec. 29.
The board was unanimous, however, that Thursday’s National Day of Morning would be business as usual for county offices, despite President Joe Biden’s executive order on Dec. 30 to close federal agencies and offices on Jan. 9 for Carter’s funeral.
While the board typically grants paid time off for federally declared holidays and observances, the holiday pay would have cost Colusa County taxpayers another $226,000 in lost productivity and additional pay for essential workers immediately on the footsteps of the Christmas Eve holiday Biden directed by executive order, giving federal employees that day off with pay.
County officials said their policy states that any day a president or governor declares a day free of work, no matter the national or statewide significance, the county shall include it as paid time off unless otherwise decided by board action.
“We didn’t really have time to take action, so we just let it go, and everyone had the day off,” said Vice Chair Daurice Kalfsbeek Smith, about the extra holiday in December.
Kalfsbeek oversaw the special meeting on Jan. 6 that included new District 4 Supervisor Randy Wilson, who was sworn in earlier that day.
Supervisor Janis Bell said she would like to see all Colusa County employees receive more, but felt Carter’s not unexpected demise at the age of 100 justified the cost.
“It’s not a federal holiday,” said Bell said. “It’s a day of mourning or day of observance, but there is no federal statute that we have to provide the day off for our employees – and no state statute that says that we have to.”
In addition to Christmas Eve, Christmas, and New Year’s Day, county employees will be given paid time off for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Jan. 20; Lincoln’s birthday, Feb. 12; President’s Day, the third Monday in February; and Cesar Chavez Day, March 22, and a bevy of other paid holidays throughout the year which are not observed in the private sector.
The board agreed that given their budget challenges, county employees should not be entitled to another day off at taxpayers’ expense.
Carter was the longest-lived president in U.S. history. Two days after his death, the customary military horse unit transported his casket to the U.S. Capital, before a motorcade transported his remains to Georgia for burial next to his wife, Rosalynn Carter, who died in 2023 at the age of 96.
Carter’s Presidential Library was open to the public free of charge on Thursday.
In keeping with a tradition that dates to President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s executive order in 1954, Biden also ordered U.S. flags flown at half-staff for 30 days on all federal properties following the death of a president.